Re: Common Live CD base and generator

[Fleny68 <fleny68@free.fr>]

p.carsten@arcor.de a écrit :
> >  -  You write an adaptation of jigdo: it could get a .deb, unpack it 
> > and put the files in the right place of the iso, eventually compressing 
> > them.
>
>
> A regular install of a .deb into the live CDs "chroot"
> eviromnent, possibly into a mounted compressed fs.
AFAIK compressed fs used in LiveCD (cloop, squashfs) are read only. 
Usage is create after the contents is made. That means you need 3G space 
free to create LiveCD.  If you can put in the image compressed data 
directly, you need less than 1G.

> > For that jigdolivecd-file needs to know what deb contains what 
> > file in the fs.
>
>
> Maybe this is not neseccary:
>
> A .tamplate is made from the base of a live cd where the largest part that is
> the compressed fs file is left out (md5sumed can be ignored in the case of
> personal live cds).
>
> On the client side jigdo or a helper program first takes a list of packages
> (tasks/meta-packages?) and installs the .debs into a mounted compressed fs
> file of the same size that will fits into the CD .template afterwards.
Right. This need a clent side elaborate program, capable to detect wich 
deb can be repackaged (or files reget) from a old version of the cd.

> This part is actually like a normal install, you can do it manualy and choose
> what you want or use a more automated method to install into the
> "master chroot" location. The difference from a regular install in these days
> are things like the use of a init package with permanent automatic hardware
> detection. (i.e. .debs that could be brought back into debian from existing
> knoppix/morphix etc. as agreed earlier [1] and with news heard to come soon) 
yes. I know Fabian Franz has this kind of ideas too. He has done a proof 
of concept ppc port last year.

IMHO autoconfiguration needs usage of discover2. hwsetup (in knoppix) is 
a good solution but not enough generic. Anyway i use hwsetup ppc port 
for the moment.
discover2 needs just a database with full configuration information 
(like options to pass in XF86Config-4). It's very flexible.

> But maybe even the the eltorito bootimage and initrd should be
> fetched/created from regular packages, in this case the adapted jigdo would
> probably be run in a mode that calls mkisofs at the end,
> again as disussed at [2] and later.
eltorito is a PC problem. Integrate in debian means thinking in non PC 
arch. This is why Fabian Franz has done a ppc port.

anyway in Mac a bootable cd needs hybrid HFS/ISO9660 CD, mkisofs can do 
that too. so mkisofs seems a good solution.

Regards,

--
Fleny